Summary

The author reflects on the challenges of adolescence, expressing gratitude for not having to navigate them with the added pressure of social media.

Abstract

The author, reminiscing about their teenage years, is thankful for the absence of social media during their formative years. They describe the struggles of wearing a back brace for scoliosis, the onset of depression, and the feeling of social isolation. Despite these challenges, the author found solace in their family and academic achievements. They acknowledge that the constant connectivity of today's social media landscape would have exacerbated their feelings of inadequacy and loneliness, making it difficult to escape from the pressures of adolescence. The author emphasizes the importance of physical distance and the gift of disconnection in the past, contrasting it with the current reality where teens spend an average of 7 hours and 22 minutes on screens daily.

Opinions

The author believes that social media would have intensified the emotional turmoil of their teenage years, given their existing insecurities and sense of isolation.
They express a sense of relief for having grown up in an era without the pervasive influence of social media, which allowed them to separate their home and school lives.
The author suggests that the ability to disconnect physically from social pressures at school was crucial for their mental health and ability to cope.
They are skeptical about whether they could have resisted the temptation to engage with social media if it had been available during their adolescence.
The author implies that the digital world's constant availability would have made their teenage years significantly more challenging due to the incessant exposure to peers' social lives and the resulting

I Wouldn’t Have Survived My Teenage Years in This Age of Social Media

How constant connectivity can make adolescence so much harder to navigate

Photo by Photographe EVJF GREG on Unsplash

“Social media isn’t simply a way of life for kids — it’s life itself.” From Common Sense Media

I’m ever so grateful I had the gift of escape as a teenager, back when connectivity meant having one telephone landline for the entire household.

I never would go back to being in middle or high school, especially in today’s social media world. I mean, I didn’t go through particularly horrible trauma like abuse or being bullied. Still, even teenagers who are in no specific way scarred can suffer real anguish rooted in a sense of insecurity, inferiority, loneliness, and inadequacy. I felt all four as a teenager.

At 14, I got a back brace to correct my scoliosis. The brace was a horribly uncomfortable and bulky contraption that made me look — worse still, feel — ugly.

I wore that brace for four years, the same four years I began to pick the skin around my fingers to death and to feel the first symptoms of depression, a mental illness I would struggle with for years.

In addition, the hormonal and brain changes that come with puberty hit me mighty hard, as they do a lot of people, girls in particular. Add the brace and a strong genetic predisposition for depression and you’ve got yourself a real confused teenager.

I channeled my acute sense of inadequacy by withdrawing and becoming — and I mean this in a descriptive, not negative, way — a shy nerd. I lost my two best friends since the second grade and had no real close peers to talk to, call, or go out with for nearly three years.

Still, when I was a teenager, I could keep my home and school life separate.

At school, I’d hear about my classmates' plans to go to this or that club and party over the weekend, how Roberto had asked Liliana out, or how some girls had gotten together to study but ended up doing phone pranks and dancing to Madonna.

Mondays were the worst, what with all the giggling and loud laughter that accompanied my classmates’ retelling of their weekend adventures.

It pained me, deeply, that I wasn’t part of the experiences these 60 girls I’d known since kindergarten were having. I wished for boys to like me, to go to clubs and parties. I would’ve given anything to get the inside jokes and references, laugh readily, and even panic about not having even started the assignment due tomorrow because I’d been out so much.

Two things helped me get through it all: my big close-knit family, and an obsession with getting top grades and going away to college.

Plus, back in the mid-1980s, I could go home and know nothing, absolutely nothing, about any of the girls at school until the next day, or, better yet, until Monday.

How would those years have played out for me in this age of social media?

According to a Washington Post article published in October 2019, “Teens average 7 hours and 22 minutes — not including time spent using screens for school or homework.” Yes, you read that right, the 7 hours are pre-pandemic and don’t even include school-related homework.

Would I have been able to escape into my books, studies, and family life if I was a teenager today?

Hell no. Not a chance. I know I wouldn’t have resisted going on social media to check everyone’s comings and goings, images, and comments.

I certainly would have suffered every single time I saw proof of the fabulous fun and socialization I was missing out on — the video clips of my classmates in fashionable clothes and makeup at a party, the selfies with their tongues out, the hundreds of comments, emojis, shares and likes.

It’s one thing to hear about it all at lunch. It’s quite another to see it play out in multiple formats, platforms, and accounts accessible 24/7.

It’s only in hindsight that I can call escape a gift, as the digital world didn’t exist back when life in the real world was the only life we had and physical distance was the only distance that mattered.

Still, the absence of social media in my teens is one reason I’m glad I’m 51 and not 15.

*The Honest Ponderer helps deep thinkers achieve personal growth by examining the human experience deeply and honestly. Monthly emails.*